Monday, 21 October 2013

Water Hole Count

If you sit in one spot long enough animals are bound to walk
past. In this case, I sat in that spot for twelve hours. A fellow intern and I
were placed ten meters up in a hide for a day in order to count the number of
animals, and what species they are, that come to a certain water hole in
Bellebeno. Bellebeno is the soft release camp that I referenced in an earlier
post. The baboons in the area had decided to give the hide some primate-like
touches, and it we hadn’t gotten around to fixing it yet. So there we sat for
half a day. In that tattered hide I saw hundreds of animals. Most of the
animals were warthogs, but there was the occasional surprise. A giraffe hung
around for an hour and half before he decided to let us watch him drink. Fifty
eight guinea fowl rushed in and took the water hole over like a swarm. Jackals
timidly approached the water and would only take a few drinks in between
frantic scannings of the surrounding bush. It was great to see how different
species treat the water hole, and how the wild can have a kind of central hub
that almost every species needs to visit.